Hunters vs Marauders
by NightStar7
Summary: What if the Marauders weren't the only pranking group at Hogwarts, what of there was another known as the Hunters? What if One of their members was a girl named Lyric, and what if she had a crush on everyone's favorite werewolf? This is a story of rivalry, friendship, and two people finding what they thought they never would...
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

_Lyric's P.O.V._

This is the story of my life. My name is Lyric Hayden, and I'm 14 years old, and this is my story beginning in my fourth year of Hogwarts. I'm in Gryffindor, my best friends in the world are Lily Evans, Marlene McKinnon, and Alice Hinton, and I was nicknamed 'Shadow' because I blend into a crowd. And later (as in as soon as I joined the Quiditch team) Racing was added to the beginning of my name, because I could run faster than anybody else on the team. I don't stand out, I hate being the center of attention, and more than anything in the world, I hate people that think that they're perfect. Why? Because we are humans, and it's because of, or maybe in spite of this fact that nobody's perfect, and as cheesy and cliché as that sounds, it's completely true.

Personally, I like being invisible, and frankly, I used to be quite good at it. Up until about a week ago, I was pretty sure that nobody in the school aside from the teachers and my three friends knew my name, or even noticed my existence. And I was happy with that. But no, I had to make it as my house's Seeker. Worst mistake of my life. Now almost everybody knows who I am, and I can't stand it. Some days, I wish more than anything that I could go back in time, and stop myself from joining that team, if only James freaking Potter hadn't seen me and convinced me to try out. But, there's nothing that I can do about it now, what's done is done, and there's no going back.

I had been at Hogwarts for a little over three months, and those were definitely some of the weirdest months of my life...

"Uuuuuuuuuuuuugh!" I groaned, which might have been the most articulate I'd ever been in the morning. It was at this point that I could feel my bed being jumped upon by the petite blonde otherwise know as Alice Hinton. I kicked my legs out and I tripped her, making her fall flat on her butt. That got me sitting bolt upright, after I shook with silent laughter for a moment.

"Lyric, you are a cruel person," Alice grumbled, standing up and sitting down on my legs.

"Yeah, sometimes I wonder why the Sorting Hat didn't put me in Slytherin," I said, rubbing my eyes. Lily gave a mock gasp and cried out,

"It lives!" I scowled at her and folded my arms over my chest.

"I hate you," I said, sighing and heading for the bathroom.

"No you don't," Lily said.

"You're right, it's impossible for anybody to hate anybody except for you hating James Potter." I said, sarcastically.

"Don't you dare speak his name!" she shouted, tackling me to the ground. I landed with a loud grunt.

"Can I please take my shower now?" I asked, shoving her off of me. She stood up and made a mock 'after you' bow and I stood up grumpily, and locked the bathroom door behind me. I turned the water on just short of scalding, and stood there until I was all nice and wrinkly. I dressed quickly and brushed my black hair as quickly as I could. Sometimes having nice limp pin straight hair was a blessing in disguise. I tucked my left side bangs behind my ear and grabbed my wand off of the table next to my bed. I grabbed by bag and stuffed my books and a few reports inside, along with a few quills, extra parchment, and a bottle of ink. I ran down the steps to the common room, when I crashed right into something. It took me a moment to realize that the something that I ran into was actually a some_one._

"Sorry!" I yelped. I looked up to see somebody with honey blond hair and blue/gray eyes laying flat on his back. I heard him cough and start to sit up. Of course I would run into _him _of all people at an embarrassing moment like this. I had just run into the guy that I had had a crush on for the past three years. I had just run into Remus Lupin...

I could feel my face getting warmer as my normally pale skin turned pink.

"Sorry, I wasn't watching where I was going," he said, his blue/gray eyes staring into my dark blue ones.

"No, it was totally my fault, I shouldn't have been running like that," I said, unable to look away from his piercing gaze. Suddenly, he stood up, and offered his hand to me. I could almost play connect the dots with the scars that were on the back of his hand. Something seemed to pass between the two of us, because even after I was standing, his larger hand continued to hold my smaller one. Suddenly, I heard footsteps coming down the boy's staircase, and Remus' three friends; James Potter, Sirius Black, and Peter Pettigrew, were visible. The two of us jumped apart, and I could tell that my face was now red, and I could see that Remus' cheeks and the back of his neck were turning pink.

"Hey Remus, who's this with you?" Sirius asked, looking at me and wiggling his eyebrows in what was probably meant to be a seductive motion, but just made me want to laugh.

"This is Lyric Hidden," he said. I was surprised that he knew my name.

"Oh, are you new?" Peter asked. Typical.

"I'm in fourth year with you guys, we started first year together, I was partnered with James in Potions for a week last month, I'm on our Quiditch team, I'm the seeker." I listed, knowing that they probably wouldn't remember me. That was when recognition seemed to register with them. I just rolled my eyes and said,

"I have to go to breakfast." I turned to leave, but somebody had a tight grasp on my wrist.

"Why don't you walk with us?" Sirius asked. I shrugged and did an 'okay, since it seems like I don't really have an option,' face. We all turned and walked out of the portrait whole.

When we got down to the Gryffindor table, I could feel Lily glaring daggers at me, as I tried to hide behind the four of them. People were staring. I don't like it when people stare at me. When they sat down, I was about to go over to Lily, Marlene, and Alice, but once again, my wrist was pulled on, and I found myself firmly seated between Remus and Sirius. I gave them a questioning look, but they either didn't notice it, or they chose to ignore it. Deciding that being subtle wasn't working, I went for the more direct route.

"Okay guys, why am I here, and why am I not allowed to leave?" I asked. They all gave me startled looks, but quickly recomposed themselves.

"Well, we were wondering if you knew anything about the people that have been pranking us? The Hunters. Can you tell us age? House? How many of them there are?" James asked.

"Why would I know anything about that?" I asked.

"Well, you're quiet, and nobody knows who you are, you could be our spy, get any information that you can get on them," Peter said. I raised my eyebrows at him, trying to show him that I thought that it was a ridiculous thing to suggest. Again, he didn't get it.

"Well I'm sorry, but I didn't even know that you were being pranked. So I don't really know how much help I'd be." I said, trying not to smirk.

"Well, now you know, so will you help us or not?" James asked, getting straight to the point. I hesitated a moment before nodding my head.

"Good, now you're an honorary Marauder. We Marauders watch out for each other, so if you need help, all you have to do is ask. You ready to start snooping, Lyric?" Sirius asked, a wicked grin on his face. I nodded, stood up, and walked over to my three friends.

"What did _they _want?" Lily asked.

"They wanted to know who has been pranking them. They suspect the Hunters," I said, referring to the name that the four of us had chosen a few years prior. By doing so, we could claim our pranks, and not get punished for doing said pranks. Our favorite targets were the Marauders and the Slytherins, but we were always careful to avoid Severus Snape.

"Maybe we should prank them, to give you a fighting chance at being their informant." Alice suggested, an evil smirk spreading across her face. We all nodded in agreement. That was when I could almost see the gears turning in Lily's head.

"I have an idea, I'll explain as soon as we can go someplace quiet." Lily said, picking up her bag, standing and motioning for us to follow her. Once we were out of the Great Hall, we ran up two flights of stairs, turned left, and crossed in front of a part of a wall three times. When a door appeared, we stepped through into the Room of Requirement. We all flopped down onto a couch, and turned toward Lily.

"Okay, so what were you thinking?" I asked.

"Well, what if we made a polyjuice potion, and changed into the boys, and terrorized the school as them? How awesome would that be?" Lily explained.

"That would be awesome! But brewing a potion like that would take like three months." Alice said sadly.

"No it wouldn't, I've been making one for the last couple of months. It's all done! All we need now is their hair, and we can pull the prank. And I believe that Lyric can help us with that part, if you can get into their room, or if you can distract them while we get it." Lily said, smiling.

"I'll distract them, don't you think that it would be weird if they saw me taking hair from their brushes?" I asked. They all shrugged as if that made sense. That was when the bell rang, signaling the end of breakfast. We all exited the Room of Requirement, and I followed Lily down to the dungeons as we headed to the Potions classroom.

We were a couple of minutes late, but seeing as I was with Lily, and the door was at the back, and his back was to us, Professor Slughorn didn't say anything to us when we quietly put our stuff down at the back of the classroom and took the furthest back table that we could. I looked at the board and started copying the notes that dear old Professor Sluggy had written down.

"I'll distract them at lunch, and we can prank them tomorrow." I whispered to her as I reached down to get my Potions textbook.

"'Kay," she whispered back. The rest of the day passed by quickly until lunch came by. By then I was jittery, and probably looked like I was scared out of my wits. But I was actually quite excited.

"Hey guys, what's up?" I asked, sitting down between Remus and Peter.

"Nothing, did you find out something, or did you just miss us too much to stay away?" Sirius asked.

"Actually, I wanted to ask you something. Do the Hunters leave anything behind, maybe something that could give me a clue as to who they might be?" I asked.

"Yeah, they leave a sign floating above our heads or wherever else they've struck. Always that silver badge with that bow and arrow on it. Why?" Remus asked.

"Just wondering so I could narrow my search. Aside from that, do you see anything else odd whenever they prank you?" I asked, hoping that they would answer with 'no' so that they would have no clues about us other than the sign.

"Nope, that's it. Just that sign," Peter said sighing. That sign that they kept referring to was our way of claiming our pranks. When I looked over and saw the rest of the Hunters coming into the Great Hall, I stood up and walked over to them.

"How did it go?" I asked nervously.

"No problems." Marlene said, sounding almost disappointed.

"No need to sound so disappointed, Marls, you'll have plenty of trouble to get into tomorrow, but get blamed for nothing." I said, an evil smirk playing across my face. An identical smirk covered the rest of the Hunters' faces as we sat down to eat...


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

The Prank

_Lyric's P.O.V._

The next day was the day that we had been waiting for. Lily had agreed to wake us up at five o'clock in the morning so we could sneak into their room, take their wands and hide them, and then lock the boys up in a closet or something. We were all still in our pajamas as we were sneaking over to their room. Thankfully, only the Marauders slept in that room, so we didn't have to worry about anybody waking up while we were starting the prank. We were also starting it so early because nobody would be awake yet.

When we got over there, I had to clap a hand over my mouth to stop myself from laughing. The floor was quite literally covered in _stuff. _We all quietly walked over to the Marauder that we would be turning into, and placed a silencing charm on them, then we blindfolded them, and tied their hands behind their backs, and then tied up their feet. We hauled them into their bathroom, put a muffling charm on the bathroom door, and sat down on their beds.

"Ready?" asked Lily. We all nodded our heads, pulled the hair and a small phial of the potion out of our pockets, added the hairs, and choked down the retched potion. I could feel my skin start to bubble as it changed shape, I could feel the scar on my face fading and new scars erupting just about everywhere else. Within five minutes, I was in the body of Remus Lupin, standing in his uniform, since the girls and I had changed out of our pajamas and into their clothes, knowing that we would be growing.

"Ready to cause some trouble gir- I mean boys?" Alice asked from Peter's body. We wanted to be careful because we knew that if the boys woke up, they would be able to hear if anybody was in their room. We had done this on purpose. Just because we were girls and we had feelings, that didn't mean that we couldn't be cruel.

I walked over to their bathroom door, momentarily taking their silencing charms off, allowing me to knock on the door and hear them wake up.

"Hey, what's going on?" I heard Peter yell.

"Why can't I see anything?" James asked.

"Where are we?" I could hear Sirius ask.

"Hello boys, prepare for the next couple of months to be your own personal hell. The Hunters are declaring war on the Marauders. Out prank us, and we'll reveal our identities. Fail, and you find out nothing," I said in Remus' voice.

"Remus, you traitor!" Sirius yelled, having not heard Remus' voice except for what I had said.

"I'm in here you dolt. The other one is obviously an imposter!" he yelled angrily.

"Correct, and for that, you will now receive a clue as to how to escape. One of you, shake your head until the blindfold comes off, then that person will have to scoot over to another and untie that person's hands. Then, that person will work on the next person, and so forth. After that, remember this, the door is not locked. But, if we see you, we will curse you without thinking twice. Understand?" I explained.

"Is that supposed to be a threat?" I heard somebody ask.

"No, the other Remus is just trying to scare us!" Remus exclaimed.

"And remember, anything is possible." I said, smiling when I heard him start grumbling.

"Goodbye boys, see you tomorrow. If we do see you tomorrow, we will not curse you. We will leave a note with Frank Longbottom explaining what happened, and he will come let you out. Have a nice day. Don't bother trying to yell out, the door will have a muffling charm, and we have your wands. Now goodbye." I said, turning and following the girls out of their bedroom. We ran down their staircase, and through the common room, and out through the portrait hole. We ran down into the Great Hall where people were now seated. I looked down at the watch that Remus usually wore on his left wrist and saw that it was 7 o'clock in the morning.

"Were we really in their room for two hours?" I asked Marlene/Sirius.

"They were heavy, and then you took forever warning the boys." she said, shrugging, and walking toward the Gryffindor table. He/she sat down and flipped his black hair out of his dark gray eyes.

By the time lunch rolled around, we had already earned the boys a month's worth of detention, and we were only getting started. When one of the teachers had asked where the girls and I were, I (being that I was Remus and the nicest of the group) told her that we were in the hospital wing getting a curse taken off of us when a prank had gone wrong. After confessing that the Marauders had been behind it, they were given yet another few detentions. I had tried not to grin at that.

What we hadn't anticipated, was the chasing. Every time a girl saw either Marlene/Sirius or Lily/James, they would start chasing them. Even I had been chased a few times. I never really thought about how tiring it was to run from screaming fan girls, but it really was. The first time it had happened, Marlene hadn't known what would happen, and they had nearly killed her, so many people had piled on top of her. By the time Lily, Alice, and I had finally managed to pull Marlene out, most of her clothing was in tatters, her hair was sticking nearly straight up, and her face was covered in lipstick kisses. At the time, I had nearly fallen over from my laughter.

I was sitting at the Gryffindor table with the other three 'Marauders' when the real ones came in.

"Code red!" I yelled at the other three. Just after I had said that, the real Marauders saw us and came stalking over toward us.

"Ahh! Run for it!" yelled Alice/Peter. We all took off toward the hall, running along the side of the table that the four of them weren't on. I heard James mutter something, but hadn't paid attention to it until Lily told us what he had said.

"Guys, James just said that the real ones will have a password. The password is 'Stag'," whispered Lily/James.

"'Kay!" we all whispered to her, and then we took off in different directions, Lily toward the south part of the building, Alice toward the east, Marlene the west, and me toward the north.

"James, you take the fake Sirius, Sirius, you take the fake Peter, Peter, you take the fake James, and I'll take the fake me," I heard Remus yell. I wondered about his choices for a moment. Wouldn't it have been easier for each boy to take their counterpart? They wouldn't have to worry about knowing which one was which. But I didn't think about it too long, I was more focused on running. However, that was when I made a huge mistake. I tripped in a dark shadowy hallway, and fell flat on my face.

"Dammit!" I yelled. That was when I heard Remus say,

"I think I found my imposter. Hurry you three, go find the others!" I heard Remus shout. I took off down the hall, but was slower than I normally was because Remus was bigger than I was, and he had muscle to him, where I didn't. I could hear Remus behind me, starting to get closer. Well, I couldn't have that, so I quickly turned a sharp corner, and crashed into somebody who had incredibly messy black hair, glasses, and hazel eyes, who was being chased by somebody with black hair and dark gray eyes.

"Sirius! James! Stag!" I shouted out. Sirius stopped in his tracks, and I could only assume that Remus was now right behind me.

"Stag!" Remus said between his gasps for air.

"How does this one know the password?" James asked, pointing a finger at the Remus behind me.

"Because I'm the real Remus!" he shouted.

"No you're not! I'm the real Remus!" I shouted.

"Guys! We're never going to figure this out with the both of you here. You there, the one sitting on the floor, come over here with me and answer a few questions," said Sirius, signaling for me to follow him. I got up and did so.

"In first year, what did we choose to call the four of us when we were in our dormitory?" Sirius asked. I had to think about it, because the Marauders weren't called the Marauders until second year, and even then, it was the teachers that had started calling them that.

"Flighty?" I asked, using Marlene's nickname in the Hunters.

"Nice to see you too, Racingshadow." she/he said smiling at me. I smiled back at her, as we walked over to the other two.

"Alright, this is the real Remus, so that must be the imposter," Marlene/Sirius said, pointing at the real Remus.

"What? Sirius, James, you know that I'm the real Remus! That's the fake one!" He shouted pointing at me.

"I don't know what you're talking about, poser. Guys, get him!" Marlene/Sirius shouted. The three of us took off after Remus, but James kept looking at Sirius and I oddly, but kept chasing him nonetheless. After we rounded a corner, we crashed into a second James, a second Sirius, and two Peters, one holding the other.

"Grab him!" Sirius yelled, pointing at Marlene. We all scrambled around, trying to get away, and I would up in a hallway going toward the dungeons, with a yelling and swearing James Potter behind me.

Anyway, this continued for over an hour until everyone found themselves in front of the Room of Requirement.

"Flighty, let me handle this," I said, quickly running in front of that particular piece of wall three times, thinking; _I need a place that only a true Hunter can enter._

"Okay! Flighty! Prancer! Nightwalk! Into the Room of Requirement now! _They _can't get in. Run!" I shouted. One Sirius, the Peter that was holding Peter let go of him and ran toward me, and the James that had been with the Peters came running toward me as well. We all ran through the wall and into the Room of Requirement.

Let me explain about the nicknames. We were illegal anamigi. We had become them because we had wanted to go into the Forbidden Forest and not have to worry too much about getting attacked. Flighty for Marlene because she turned into a hawk. Nightwalk because Alice turned into a panther. And Prancer because Lily was a doe. And I was Racingshadow because I turned into a cheetah, and I was practically invisible in school.

We could hear the wall being pounded on.

"Will they be able to get in?" asked Lily/James. We were starting to morph back into ourselves, I could feel the old scars fading and the ones on my face, stomach, and back resurfacing. Within the next few minutes, we were back to our normal selves, except for the fact that we were all wearing boy's uniforms that were at least twice as big as they needed to be.

"Guys, refer to each other by nicknames only, and don't use your real voice," I said, making my voice high and squeaky.

"Nightwalk, how did you get caught?" Lily asked, her voice low and gravely.

"Of all people, I came across Peter. He looked like he wanted to scream when he saw me, so I put my hand over his mouth, grabbed his hands behind his back, and called out to anybody who was near me. I guess Sirius and Prancer found me, so they were helping me keep hold of him until we found the rest of you. Then you four came hurtling around that corner and I heard Sirius and Prancer gasp." Alice explained, her voice monotone.

"What happened to you, Prancer?" Marlene asked, her voice light and airy, much unlike it's normal straight cut sound.

"Well, I wasn't actually being chased. I was actually chasing Sirius, when he convinced me that he was the real Sirius. He didn't bother to ask me anything, but then, we just eventually found Nightwalk. Then we ran into you two. What happened to you two?" Lily explained.

"Well, I had been chasing James when he fell after he crashed into you, Racingshadow. What about you?" she asked, turning to me. After I had explained, we were all giggling, barely able to keep our laughs disguised as well.

"Well, I have a question, how are we going to get out of here?" I asked after a while.

"Oh, you guys are going to love this," Lily said, pulling something out of her pocket. When she unfolded it, it turned out to be a huge simmering silver cloak.

"Wait, is that what I think it is?" I asked, my voice it's normal sound for a second.

"Yup, I think that you're right," Alice said, smiling.

"It's an invisibility cloak, James' invisibility cloak to be precise." Lily said, smiling. Even from where we stood, I could hear all four of them yell in outrage.

"They know about that?" I could hear Sirius yell.

"What else could they know about?" Remus asked. I could tell from the tone of his voice that he was worried about something that we already knew about.

"We know about more than you may think!" Lily yelled, making sure that her voice was as different as she could make it.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Sirius yelled angrily.

"Aw look what you did Prancer, you made Padfoot angry." Marlene said, her voice mocking.

"They know about our nicknames too?" I could hear James ask worriedly.

"That's right, Prongs! And we know what they mean too!" shouted Alice.

"You do?" Remus asked, his tone of voice saying that he was very scared.

"Don't worry Moony, we won't out you, we wouldn't want our only competition to be kicked out of school. You're honestly the only decent Marauder." I said, my voice only slightly different from my normal one.

"You know?" he squeaked.

"Yes, Remus, Moony, whatever you want to be called. We know that you're a werewolf, we know that the rest of you blokes are illegal animagi. James, you are the majestic stag, Sirius, the huge black dog, and Peter, the timid rat," Marlene said.

"How could you possibly know all of that?" James asked, his voice shaking.

"Why we saw you, how else?" Lily asked cockily.

"How did you see us, but nobody has ever seen a trace of any of you?" Peter asked.

"Well, us like you, are in a similar situation, but nobody in our little group has a 'furry little problem', as some of you seem to call it. We are illegal animagi. One flier, one runner, one whitetailed, and one shadow. Figure it out, along with our names, and we'll give you some more clues about who we really are." I said, smirking.

"Okay, Prancer, pull out the invisibility cloak, and we'll leave them to figure out our little clue," Alice said, smirking. We covered ourselves in the cloak, and walked through the wall. Unfortunately, only two people would have been able to fit underneath it comfortably, and I would up tripping, and crashing into Alice, who crashed into Lily, and so on. We all wound up on the floor, tangled limbs everywhere. I felt a slight breeze on my pants leg, near the shoe and knew that it probably wasn't a good sigh. I used a single finger, and pulled up the edge of the cloak to see if they had noticed. They were all looking directly at where the four of us were standing. That was when I heard my heart stop beating.

"Guys, change appearances, and run for it, Prancer, you take the cloak and hide it," Alice whispered to the rest of us. Soft murmuring must have alerted the Marauders to what we were doing, because then, they started racing toward us.

"Hurry!" I shouted, after using a spell to disguise my voice. I ducked out from under the cloak and my now short blond hair streaming behind me as I took off at full speed.

"Come on guys! Come get me!" I shouted over my shoulder. Only one of them changed their course, the rest of them continued running to where I had just appeared. I could hear Remus already panting behind me.

"Come on, you should be able to keep up with me! You should have enough practice running away from them, so you should have no problem chasing girls!" I shouted over my shoulder, laughing at his expression when those words left my mouth. His face turned pink, his blue/gray eyes widened, and his mouth nearly hit the floor, but he quickly shook his head to focus on trying to catch me.

"Come on Remmy-poo!" I shouted, slowing down to give him a chance to get closer.

"Guys how are you doing on the rest of them?" Remus asked, slowing down significantly.

"Not good, they're all really fast. Granted, not nearly as fast as blondy, but still pretty damn fast!" Sirius yelled, trying to catch a dark auburn haired girl that I could only assume was probably Marlene, considering the way that her left foot was turned slightly more inward than her right foot. Looking over, I could see that James was trying to catch the person that I knew to be Lily. She had a small mole at the base of her neck that I had never seen anybody else have. And Peter was busy trying to catch Alice, who had a slight limp from an injury that she had gotten while we were in the Forbidden Forest during one of yet another of our trips to find hidden places to plan pranks. It had yet to heal. But even with that injury, she was one of the fastest of the Hunters. Then came Lily and then Marlene.

"Come on Moony! I know that you can run faster than this." I taunted, knowing that now I was starting to get to him. That was when he growled from deep in his throat, and came charging toward me. He quickly came within reaching distance of me, when I dove to the side, and it took a minute for him to stop, turn around, and come running toward me again.

"Aw come on! Come get me," I further taunted. He growled again, and this time, he managed to grab my arm. But, then he tripped, pulling me down with him. He landed on the ground with a grunt, and he then grunted again when I fell on him. While he was still in shock, I stared into his blue eyes, and smirked.

"Nice try Moony, but, I have something else that I need to do. See ya!" I said as I stood up and started walking down the hall.

"Wait, which one are you?" he asked me, after standing up as well.

"I'm Racingshadow, and you'd do well to remember it," I said, stopping for a moment.

"Nice to have finally met you, Racingshadow. Have I met you before?" he asked, looking troubled.

"Yes, more often that you may have thought. And you're also quite well acquainted with Prancer, if I know Prongs at all, which I make it my business to. Nightwalker and Flighty too. You know us all, you just don't _know _us. Catch my drift?" I asked, starting to walk again. I looked around, and noticed that the rest of the Hunters had disappeared, and the other Marauders were just staring at me now.

"Well, it was nice talking to you boys. How does it feel to have come face to face with your tormentors, and still have no idea who we are. How much are you hurting right now? I'm afraid that I can't stay any longer, but I am an awful busy person. Good bye boys." I said, rounding a corner and breaking into a run, running all the way to the Hospital Wing where I had to visit an old family friend...


	3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

THE AFTERMATH

_Lyric's PO.V._

When I walked into the Hospital Wing, I muttered the counter curse to the appearance altering spells, and then I looked like myself again. Same pin straight black hair, same dark blue eyes, same pale skin, and same old scar on my face.

"Poppy?" I yelled out, hoping that she wasn't with a patient at the moment. I saw her bustling over toward me and look at me, slightly confused.

"Yes, Lyric? What's the matter?" she asked.

"I kind of need a favor, but it would involve lying to a couple professors." I said, almost positive that she wouldn't go for it.

"What would you need me to lie about, dear?" she asked.

"If any of the Professor ask where Lily Evans, Alice Hinton, Marlene McKinnon, and I were from this morning until lunchtime, can you tell them that we were here, getting curses taken off, curses that were the end result from a prank gone wrong, played on us by the Marauders. Look, I know that this is a lot to ask, but you're the only one that can help us. Please?" I asked, giving her my best puppy dog face.

"Oh, alright, but only this once. And tell your foster father that I said 'Hello', would you dear?" she asked. I nodded, and walked out of the Hospital Wing, feeling a little nauseous about the whole incident.

My foster father's name is Ronald Perry, and he adopted me five years ago from an orphanage in Diagon Alley. Only babies that come from magical families get taken there, and I happen to come from a pureblood family. My family was the Hayden family, a _very _old family, about as old as the Blacks, Potters, Dumbledores, Malfoys, Hintons, and Weasleys. But, my mother, the last Hayden, had not been married when she was mauled to death by Fenrir Greyback, and for some odd reason, Fenrir hadn't even tried to bite me when he had attacked me, hence why I am now covered in over fifty scars. Don't ask me why he spared me, because I have no idea, but he did, and I'm glad.

I guess that I should explain why just about anybody who meets me will call me Lyric Hidden, and this is because the other children at that orphanage were very cruel people. Almost immediately, they noticed that I didn't like to be noticed, that I liked to stay _hidden _and so when my foster father came to adopt me, everybody knew me as Lyric Hidden, so that is what is on that form to this very day, even though my last name is actually Hayden.

-X-

Eventually, I got down to the Great Hall, and found that the Marauders were waiting for me. I looked around as discreetly as I could, and noticed that the rest of the Hunters were not there. I didn't have my bag with me, so I could see that they were looking at me suspiciously. I walked over to them, and sat down between Remus and Peter.

"What?" I asked.

"Why don't you have your bag with you?" Sirius asked, looking at me through narrowed eyes.

"Because I only just got out of the Hospital Wing, thanks to you jerks!" I said, doing my best to act as angry as I could.

"What? We didn't do anything to you!" James exclaimed.

"Oh really? Are you saying that clones put Lily, Alice, Marlene, and I in the Hospital Wing?" I asked sarcastically.

"Yes!" They all exclaimed.

"How stupid do you think I am? If you're going to continue to prank me, then I will not help you, goodbye boys," I said standing up.

"Wait, what did you just say?" Remus asked.

"Goodbye boys?" I said, not knowing what was going on.

"That's exactly what Racingshadow said when she left us, every time actually. Lyric, is there something that you'd like to tell us?" Remus asked.

"Yes, actually," I said. They all looked at me in surprise, and then glared at me.

"I would like to tell you all that you are completely insane!" I said, walking further down the table. I heard footsteps behind me, and I looked to see Remus standing there, his cheeks red with embarrassment.

"Lyric, I'm sorry that I said that. I shouldn't have accused you like that, especially because you're helping us try to find them, so I'm sorry." he said, looking me in the eye.

"It's okay I guess, it was bound to happen eventually. So, do you have any leads. And were you kidding about the clones, right? Because if you weren't that kinda makes you sound just a little bit insane." I said, walking back over with him to the other three Marauders.

"But it's true!" exclaimed James.

"Really? I asked, faking bewilderment.

"Yeah, as best as we can figure, the Hunters came into our rooms this morning, blindfolded us, tied us up, and put us in our bathroom, while they ran around the school causing as much trouble as they could, posing as us. We think that they used a polyjuice potion, but we don't really know. So I guess that the Hunters were the ones that sent you and the girls to the Hospital Wing this morning, but I've never known them to harm anybody, they're pranks are usually just funny and embarrassing, or both, but never actually cause pain. What did they do to you four?" he asked.

"Well, they didn't actually hurt us, like you said, they were mostly embarrassing. They turned my hair a weird puce color, and my skin was blue with pink polka dots. Lily wound up having antlers affixed to her head, and her hair turned green with streaks of silver, and her skin was pretty much the same as her hair. Alice was turned completely purple, and Marlene was given beaver teeth, bug eyes, and butterfly wings. All in all, when we looked at each other it was pretty funny, but when you realized that you had also been made to look weird, it made you kind of depressed. Anyway, we spent about an hour trying to get the curses to go away, but they must have used nearly permanent charms, because they took Madam Pomfrey over three hours to get them off of us." I explained, having discussed the curses that each of us sustained with the rest of the girls, in case any of us were questioned about it later, and then the stories would match up. Some might say that we were paranoid, but in a world where everybody is out to get you, paranoia is just being cautious.

"So how did the Hunters get you?" Sirius asked, acting oddly serious.

"We were up in our dorm when they got us, but they looked like you guys, so we didn't really know what to do. So we just kinda stood there while they hexed us, more out of shock than anything else. When they finished, they just ran out and left. Then it was sort of like coming out of a trance, and we realized what had happened, and we tried every spell that we could think of to get rid of the hexes, but they stayed, no matter what we tried. Then we went to the Hospital Wing to get them removed, and like I said, it took us a while." I lied. They all gave me sympathetic looks, which I didn't even know was possible from Sirius or James.

"Why would they prank you though? They don't normally prank any Gryffindors except for the four of us. So what reason did you give them to prank you?" James asked, looking bewildered.

"I don't know! Maybe they heard that I'm going to help you find out who they are and they felt threatened. Maybe they thought that they could scare me into silence." I said, shrugging my shoulders in mock confusion.

"Well, if that's the case, you might want to be more careful with who you associate with. Now, back to our problems. One of the Hunters, I think it was Racingshadow, she said that we know all of the Hunters, we just don't know _who _they are. Do you have any idea who they could be?" Sirius asked.

"Well, I would say that there is probably at least one in Gryffindor if they were able to get into my dorm, or yours for that matter. And every time that they're disguised, they appear as girls, right? Well, put those two facts together, and the fact that at youngest they're fourth years, oldest seventh years, and you aren't left with many girls, maybe a hundred and twenty or a hundred and thirty at the most, right? After that, use process of elimination." I said, only later realizing that I probably just gave away some stuff that I shouldn't have.

"I think you just solved one of our problems, what else do you have?" James asked, looking surprised.

"Well, think of chances for opportunity. For a Slytherin, a Gryffindor, and a Hufflepuff you would need the passwords to get into their common rooms, but if they lived in the houses, it would be easier, but it's also not impossible to get their passwords, especially if you have friends in the houses, and I'd imagine that the Hunters would have _many _friends. After all, you have the passwords to three of them, and for the fourth you don't need a password, you just need to answer a riddle." I said, shrugging.

"So we probably have a couple of houses working together, that would explain why all of the houses have been pranked equally, well if you count us being pranked for the population of Griffindor house. And that could be why they've been able to get into all four of the houses. Lyric, you're a genius!" Remus said, smiling and looking like he was about to hug me. I could feel myself blushing, so I looked down and pulled a turkey sandwich onto the plate that sat in front of me.

"So how do we find out about the others?" Peter asked.

"Do the same thing with the other houses, find out every girl's name from fourth through seventh year, and go from there." I said before biting into my sandwich. I knew that I was getting dangerously close to getting my secret let out.

"So if you know how to find out who they are, how come you haven't already figured it out?" James asked, looking at me suspiciously.

"For a few reasons, actually. One, I haven't really had the desire to find out, they've never done anything to me until today. Two, I don't want to become their prime target in their anger at being found out." I said shrugging, hoping that they wouldn't see through my facade. But they all shrugged as if that made sense, and started eating their lunch while they tried to compose a list of every girl that they could think of that was in that range. I looked around and found my three friends quickly. As quietly as I could, I stood up and walked over to them.

After the four of us sat down, they bombarded me with questions on the information that I was giving the Marauders.

"So do they suspect you?" Lily asked.

"Not at all. They've fallen for it, hook, line, and sinker." I said, smirking.

"Did they ever suspect you?" Alice asked, looking worried.

"Yeah, for all of a minute before I set them straight. I don't think that they'll be accusing me again any time soon." I said, my smirk widening. They all grinned back at me, and we started laughing.

"So who's our next target?" Marlene asked the group. All of us except Lily shrugged.

"You have an idea, Lils?" Alice asked, a grin forming on her face.

"Of course she does, who do you think that she is?" I asked sarcastically. She nudged my shoulder, and I grinned at her.

"So, who are the targets?" I asked.

"Not just the targets, I have the whole prank planned." Lily said, her smirk widening.

"Don't leave us hanging! Tell us!" Alice exclaimed quietly.

"Well... what if we didn't just issue one prank, but issue a war. Us verse the Marauders. What do you think?" She explained.

"That is bloody freaking brilliant!" Marlene exclaimed. We all responded in similar ways, and it was decided, we were going to declare war on the Marauders. The end result would probably lead to having to rebuild the school, but it would be worth it...

…

Lunch quickly ended, and we went to Potions. Potions was one of the few classes that I enjoyed, besides Charms. When we got down to the entrance to the Potions classroom, the Marauders and the Slytherins were already there. A few assorted Gryffindors were also there, but my main focus were the Marauders and Slytherins. Alice had come up with a prank that we would be pulling on the class. The door was finally opened, and out came the pot bellied, long greasy mustache wearing, professor Slughorn. He motioned us to go in, and I shared a glance with Marlene. The brunette winked at me before taking her seat next to Alice in the back of the classroom. I took my seat at the table next to them, and watched Lily sit next to Snape. I could feel my head tilt in confusion before I remembered something, she had to remind him to duck when the time was right. But, that left me without a partner. I was about to ask Marlene and Alice if I could partner up with them, when the chair next to me was pulled out, and a person sat down next to me. I turned to see a familiar blond head sitting down.

"It okay if I partner with you?" he asked. I shrugged, and Remus sat his bag on the ground.

"Alright class, today we will be working on the-" Slughorn said, before beginning a long rant about the amazing wonders of that potion. I tuned him out almost immediately, only listening to the name of the potion before flipping to the correct page in my book, and reading through the list of ingredients. I walked over to the potion's cupboard and grabbed the required ingredients, before walking back over to my table. Remus was re-reading the instructions, muttering occasionally. I placed the ingredients on the table and grabbed my cauldron, before filling it with water. I started cutting up yarrow root, mincing it before throwing the root into the cauldron.

About half an hour passed before the signal was given. I saw Lily drop an empty vile, and Marlene, Alice, Lily, Snape, and I dropped to the ground, as a cloud of electric yellow smoke billowed out of Alice's cauldron, before an explosion of pink slime rained over the classroom, covering everyone except for the five of us. I poked my head out from under the table to see a furious looking Remus covered in pink slime and green powder, with chunks of what looked like garlic stuck to him. I chuckled softly, trying to stifle it with my hand.

"Why aren't you covered?" Remus asked.

"I guess I dropped my knife at the right time," I said, feigning innocence.

"Lucky you," he sighed. Class was let out early so we could clean up, and it wasn't like we could really continue out class anyway, there wasn't a surface that wasn't covered in pink slime. As we were walking out, I shared a smug look with the other Hunters...


End file.
